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Debris Seen Falling Off Shuttle During Launch
kushboy writes "According to an article on CNN.com, there is video of debris falling off Discovery during its launch earlier today. While the debris does not appear to hit the shuttle, extra precaution and more video will be analyzed due to the Columbia mission of 2003. 'NASA has taken steps to minimize the amount and size of debris falling off the shuttle's exterior tank during its ascent. But the space agency has said it's impossible to eliminate falling launch debris.'"
From the Story summary:
From TFA:
Honestly, guys....do you even read submissions anymore?
Anyway, given the current technology, it's pretty much impossible to eliminate falling launch debris. We should know more about any possible damage by tomorrow, after the Discovery crew finish their VSE via boom-mounted camera.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts114/05072 6images/
Article title:
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Debris Seen Hitting Shuttle During Launch
Article summary:
While the debris does not appear to hit the shuttle . .
Seriously. I feel stupid complaining about the editors; I don't often. But this is ridiculous.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
NASA officials said an object that may have been a 1 1/2-inch piece of thermal tile appeared to break off from the Discovery's belly during liftoff. It came off from around a particularly vulnerable spot, near the doors to the compartment containing the nose landing gear.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,163629,00.html
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Must've been all that crack...
If it is impossible to stop debris from hitting the shuttle, should everyone be so worried? Yes, there was the Columbia disaster, but doesn't the fact with all the new precautions in place debris still strike the shuttle suggest debris probably hit the shuttle on every previous launch, and with with no major problems.
The shuttle was designed to haul and return huge cargo loads. There is NOTHING else ever designed or built than can safely return an object from space the size of a school bus. This is a remarkable feat.
Now you can certainly argue the merits of the shuttle goals. But the shuttle is still a marvel of engineering.
What is there to say really. Design by committee.
How often does it actual return cargo? I can't think of too many times when it has. The problem is that it's a horrible compromise. The factors that make for a good cargo craft are quite dissemalar from what makes a good manned craft.
TODO: Something witty here...
I think we're getting a little paranoid because of one incident. But that's just me....
Some people are like slinkys. They're useless, but it puts a smile on your face to push them down the stairs.
There. There's another post that is simultaneously true and a troll.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
This sort of thing is fairly common for shuttle launches in general, in a process which requires many component parts falling debris is inevitable. Of course, the close scrutiny of this launch will have made this coverage equally as inevitable. It appears to be some of the black undercovering of the shuttle just peeled away and fell to Earth. But NASA, ever cautious, says its might be the orbiters tiles themselves that are damage...needless to say its wise to take NASA's comments with a pinch of salt.
For those interested, heres the BBC article;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4719847.stm/
The hottest parts of the Orbiter on reentry are the leadng edges and the nose, with the underside cooler as you work aft.
That's why Columbia was doomed when the Reinforced Carbon-Carbon leading edge was damaged and the hottest gases that could enter the Orbiter melted the wing supports.
Columbia and every single Orbiter after her has lost tiles or had mild to signficant damage on every single flight. This is not inherently serious. Losing a lot of tiles in hotter areas or significant damage in one crucial area is cause for worry.
Nowandays Orbiters don't use much in the way of tiles at the top of the vehicle, preferring to use thermal blankets. Only a serious breech of the nose or wing edge RCC is dangerous in the extreme. Tile damage elsewhere is nothing to sneeze at, but generally the underside tile loss is not as bad because the heating and the air movement is less direct.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
My thoughts and prayers go out the the family of the bird that hit the external tank. An autopsy will be performed tomorrow to find official cause of death--most likely "hit by shuttle".
it's impossible to eliminate falling launch debris
Impossible? Typical engineer thinking... of course there is a way. Thought these guys were about to take a page from the manual of some people I work with - just keep delaying the next flight until they EOL the shuttle. W00t! 100% no impacts. Bonuses all around...
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
That explains the plan to glue plastic owls to the space shuttle.
The damage is close to the upper limit of what they could repair in space, if it does prove to be tile shear. This may force a rescue mission.
Furthermore, we won't know until at least day 3 of the mission, according to the BBC, as to whether the damage is significant. We won't know tomorrow, from the sounds of it, and depending on the nature of the damage we might not know until much later, as they may need to run computer simulations to determine the likely damage to the heat shielding, if the damage is not something they can visually inspect.
The bird strike to the external fuel tank had no significant impact (pun intended) and the debris from that doesn't seem to have caused any problems.
There are two worst-case scenarios, at this point in time. First, the tile may be sheared and the damage not repairable with the repair kits they have. Of the worst-case scenarios, this is the most likely, although it is still considered improbable. This would force a rescue mission and possibly the cancellation of all remaining shuttle flights, as it would be too big a political risk.
Alternatively, the damage may have been caused from something coming loose on the INSIDE of the landing gear assembly. An impact from the inside might easily knock the black outer layer off but not cause noticable damage to the tile. The odds of this are extremely low, but certainly not zero. It is also unlikely the astronauts will check for internal damage for the front landing gear, which means that if this IS the case, the shuttle will crash hard on landing and be destroyed.
Debris is inevitable, this is perfectly true. This is why such systems SHOULD have the best monitoring that money can buy, including internal sensors that can detect anomolous conditions.
In the case of Columbia, the damaged sections would have cooled faster than normal, due to being open to space, and would have had far higher radiation levels than normal - again from being open to space. From data like that, it would have taken all of 30 seconds to figure out the damage was significant and potentially catastrophic, with or without photographs.
Frankly, I don't know why NASA is so obsessed with photographs, as they clearly aren't telling NASA whether the damage is significant or not. Internal monitoring is needed to establish something like that, especially for components that can't clearly be seen by some far-away camera due to angle or obscuring fuel tanks.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
We're talking about several things here. First, the bird that was hit by the EFT (oh well). Second (and is this what everyone's fussing about?) two vent covers on the dorsal section of the shuttle were covered with pieces of Tyvek material (same people that make the waterproofing wrap for houses). Those fabric covers were designed to fall off as soon as the craft started moving. During today's briefing, NASA indicated, IIRC, that the two covers even had small parachutes to let them down slowly. The briefer said that these two bright-colored objects were clearly seen doing just what they were supposed to do: sliding down during the first moment of the launch.
Completely unrelated would be the hunk of whatever it was that sloughed off of the EFT just before separation, but which would have not struck the orbiter. Also unrelated was the apparent sheering off of a small, perhaps 2-3 inch chunk of a tile near the nose gear cover (just aft). They may deploy the arm to check that one out, but the tiles get pitted all the time.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
There is NOTHING else ever designed or built than can safely return an object from space the size of a school bus
Except, you know, the Russian Buran Shuttle with 20 tons return capacity vs the shuttle's 15 - and 30 tons of launch cargo capacity vs the Shuttle's 25. Best of all, the Buran could fly to orbit and back on autopilot without a human crew if needed (as it successfully did on a test flight). The best thing that NASA could have done at the time to replace their shuttle fleet would have been to fund or buy Buran from the Russians when they ran out of money. the Russians built an amazing robot spaceplane in the 80's, something that NASA still has not achieved.
But don't let silly things like, oh, facts get in the way of all your flag-waving.
NASA's shuttle is a bastard design created from political compromise: the military wanted it, the scientists wanted it, the politicians wanted it. As a result it works for almost nobody and is a 30-year old deathtrap. I'm suprised the loss rate has been so low - I have no idea what drugs NASA is ingesting, I'll be very suprised if this one isn't lost as well. The shuttle should be killed and replaced ASAP, preferably taking some serious clues from bulletproof no-compromise brute simplicity Russian space engineering - which is currently the best in the history of the world (until the Chinese or commercial sector catches up and passes them).
A simple example:
If the shuttle's re-entry angle is wrong, EVEN WITH NO DAMAGE, airframe stress becomes critical, it breaks up and everybody dies.
If a Russian space capsule's re-entry angle is wrong, they experience slightly higher G-forces and the pickup helicopter takes a couple of minutes longer to reach them after parachuting to earth.
A fact to ponder:
Modern metal alloys are tough enough to survive re-entry without protection from heat tiles. Get that? In a modern design, NO HEAT TILES ARE NEEDED. Which completely eliminates the cause of one shuttle disaster (when the heat tiles failed).
So why are we sticking with the old Shuttle?
http://msnbc.com/modules/spaceshuttle/discoverylau nch/
"But they don't have a mind for policy and no one chose them to choose it."
I assure you very few politicians have a "mind for policy" either especially when it comes to space, science and engineering.
How about let Mike Griffin make the decisions since he is in charge of the agency, he should be held responsibile for success and failure, and that means he should have the power and money so that he has a chance to succeed. From the stuff I've read he seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders, and is a VAST improvement over O'Keefe who was both gutless and clueless. NASA desperately needs one person with some smarts, guts and vision setting one direction and also someone will to make some deep and painful cuts to get NASA on a course that isn't broken, which the current one surely is, and get rid of all the dead wood and dead weight.
If you let Congressman set the policy their #1 priority is to turn NASA in to a jobs program to create jobs in their districts. Costs balloon, nothing gets done, reference Shuttle and ISS. That is all our government does anymore, churn out pork to create jobs and line pockets.
At one point there were 6,000 people directly employed full time just on the Shuttle not counting contractors making parts. The Shuttle has over its life averaged $1.3 billion per launch far in excess of what was advertized.
Congressman with big shuttle and ISS pork, especially Florida and Texas, are already making threats Griffin's way if he tries to cut back jobs on the the shuttle and ISS to free money for CEV and beyond.
Politicians need maybe need to set the target, and insure adequate funds for the long haul and then get completely out of the way for the execution.
@de_machina
So the shuttle has a shedding problem. How about a huge, form-fitting hairnet for the entire craft?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
You poor bastard.
You missed being "insightful" by 0.92 seconds.
Now you're modded as a loser.
Learn to type faster.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
There may certainly have been "Debris Seen Hitting Shuttle During Launch".. But this should be no surprise since NASA scientists and engineers have stated that debris always falls, and it is 'impossible' to prevent. That's why, should you look at the shuttle time line, you will see that they are taking many more preventative measures than have ever been taken in the past. However, this begs the question.. Why weren't these steps taken before?
26 Jul - Takeoff - Wednesday - A large amount of camera and recording equipment are used to monitor the body of the aircraft during liftoff.
27 Jul - A 100 Foot Robotic Arm will inspect the shuttle's shield areas.
28 Jul - The shuttle will backflip approx 600 feet from the space station, allowing it's underside to be photographed with high-resolution cameras on the space station.
29 Jul - 3 Aug - Three 6.5 hour spacewalks have been scheduled to test and repair any heat shield damage.
Source: http://www.nasa.gov/
Hmmm, I have always wondered, why is it so hard to avoir the debris from the tank? Why not just flip the orbiter over and connect the tank to the top of the orbiter? The debris would then fall where heat is no concern during re-entry... I guess aerodynamics during liftoff are not that big of a deal given the huge power the solid boosters provide...
It just seems to me they are looking at the problem from the... wrong side (no pun intended).
The shuttle program has lived with damage from debris from the very first flight, in 1981; in 113 missions the orbiters have been hit by debris some 15,000 times, mostly on liftoff. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration replaces about 100 insulating tiles after every flight and repairs many more than that, Stephanie S. Stilson, the vehicle manager for Discovery, said Monday.
In fact, the rest of this article sums up the situation quite nicely:
July 27, 2005
Intense Hunt for Signs of Damage Could Raise Problems of Its Own
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., July 26 - Now that the Discovery is in orbit, the examination begins. Its 12½-day mission will be the most photographed in the history of the shuttle program, with all eyes on the craft to see if it suffered the kind of damage from blastoff debris that brought down the Columbia in February 2003.
There were cameras on the launching pad, cameras aloft on planes monitoring the ascent, cameras on the shuttle checking for missing foam on the external fuel tank, and a camera on the tank itself. One camera caught a mysterious object falling from the shuttle at liftoff; radar detected another, about two minutes into the flight. Cameras aboard the shuttle and the International Space Station will monitor the Discovery until the end of its mission.
But all this inspection may be a mixed blessing. The more NASA looks for damage, engineers and other experts say, the more it will find. And the risks of overreaction to signs of damage while the shuttle is in orbit may be just as great as the risks of playing them down.
"How do you distinguish - discriminate - between damage which is critical and damage which is inconsequential?" asked Dr. David Wolf, an astronaut who spent four months aboard the Russian space station Mir. "We could be faced with very difficult decisions, in part because of all this additional information that we will be presented with."
The shuttle program has lived with damage from debris from the very first flight, in 1981; in 113 missions the orbiters have been hit by debris some 15,000 times, mostly on liftoff. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration replaces about 100 insulating tiles after every flight and repairs many more than that, Stephanie S. Stilson, the vehicle manager for Discovery, said Monday.
Now, though, it will be far easier to spot such damage while the shuttle is still in orbit. Thanks to a $15 million laser camera system developed by a Canadian company, Neptec, for example, NASA can detect a crack of just two-hundredths of an inch, the width of two business cards pressed together. On the leading edge of the orbiter's wing, such a crack could admit dangerous amounts of superheated gas during re-entry. A similar crack elsewhere might not.
It was a large hole in the left wing's leading edge, caused by impact with a 1.67-pound piece of insulating foam during the launching, that led to the Columbia disaster.
But if a crack is detected, said Iain Christie, director of research and development for Neptec, "how is NASA supposed to explain that this is not a problem?"
Nor is it clear how it could be fixed. NASA's efforts to create a repair kit for tile and leading-edge panels, a recommendation of the board that investigated the Columbia accident, have not been successful. Techniques will be tested during a spacewalk in coming days, but they are not ready for an actual repair, and the Discovery astronauts have said they would not want to trust any patchwork on a return to Earth.
Another option, the "safe haven" plan, would involve abandoning the $2 billion shuttle and having the astronauts wait in the space station for a rescue mission. For that to work, another shuttle would have to be launched within a few weeks.
That is theoretically possible but carries risks of its own: the chance, for example, that the orbiting astronauts would run o
Except, you know, the Russian Buran Shuttle with 20 tons return capacity vs the shuttle's 15 - and 30 tons of launch cargo capacity vs the Shuttle's 25.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
Best of all, the Buran could fly to orbit and back on autopilot without a human crew if needed (as it successfully did on a test flight).
From the Wiki article, the final version of the Buran has a single, solitary flight and this flight was unmanned. Hardly an impressive record, no?
The best thing that NASA could have done at the time to replace their shuttle fleet would have been to fund or buy Buran from the Russians when they ran out of money. the Russians built an amazing robot spaceplane in the 80's, something that NASA still has not achieved.
Again, from the Wiki article: "The U.S shuttles landings are also mostly automated (there has only been one manually flown re-entry so far), but deployment of the landing gear requires a human to physically press the button. The manual step was added at the insistence of the astronauts, who claim that early deployment of the landing gear due to a computer error would be fatal." Geee... which flag are you waving?
NASA's shuttle is a bastard design created from political compromise: the military wanted it, the scientists wanted it, the politicians wanted it. As a result it works for almost nobody and is a 30-year old deathtrap. I'm suprised the loss rate has been so low - I have no idea what drugs NASA is ingesting, I'll be very suprised if this one isn't lost as well. The shuttle should be killed and replaced ASAP, preferably taking some serious clues from bulletproof no-compromise brute simplicity Russian space engineering - which is currently the best in the history of the world (until the Chinese or commercial sector catches up and passes them).
Reading this is funny (in a dark way) in light of a recent article over at MoFi concerning the R-16 accident. Possibly the worst rocket accident in history and it was caused by... political and symbolic concerns trumping scientific ability.
If the shuttle's re-entry angle is wrong, EVEN WITH NO DAMAGE, airframe stress becomes critical, it breaks up and everybody dies.
If a Russian space capsule's re-entry angle is wrong, they experience slightly higher G-forces and the pickup helicopter takes a couple of minutes longer to reach them after parachuting to earth.
You've switched gears and are comparing a shuttle to a capsule. What happens if a US capsule's angle is wrong? What happens if the Buran's angle is wrong?
Modern metal alloys are tough enough to survive re-entry without protection from heat tiles. Get that? In a modern design, NO HEAT TILES ARE NEEDED. Which completely eliminates the cause of one shuttle disaster (when the heat tiles failed).
I'm hardly an expert, but I thought the purpose of the tiles wasn't to simply survive heat but to prevent its conduction. Can you take a modern alloy of similar weight and thickness, heat one side with a torch and hold your hand on the other? Then you have a fair argument.
Ever since the Apolloe disaster, I have been convinced that you cannot walk up to a 30 or so story stack, hear the moaning and groaning of the equipment loaded with cryogenical propellants, and look up and say to yourself "Sure this is safe!". This fixation on "this fell off", etc. is a problem that will degrade what is left of the shuttle program. It doesn't matter what the safety is... Does anyone think there is a lack of folks applying to fly?
My wife doesn't listen to me either...
It's pretty obvious that birds are jealous of human spaceflight. First we invade the skies, and then we better them by going into space. It was probably taking advantage of the intense media coverage of this launch to try for a grand-scale terror event.
My god. How could the Bush administration fail to protect us? That bird should've been shot down by SAMs before it got anywhere near the shuttle.
This time were lucky: it wasn't a frozen chicken.
So, you have a simple pressure guague and measure the difference between observed pressure drop and your expected value of R. If the total discrepency exceeds some critical threshold, then there is a problem with the wing that would create a serious problem.
Now, measuring the temperature. There's this thing called a thermocouple. Dunno if you've come across these. It requires a couple of strands of wire, which you can run down the length of the wing quite easily. Alternatively, find a piece of metal in the wing that joins to a piece of metal that runs into the cockpit. Two types of metal, a temperature gradient, sounds like a cheapskate peltier device to me. Check the potential difference and you can detect unusual gradients with minimal effort.
Rescue mission: Uh, NASA themselves said that if there was a problem with launch that they would have Atlantis on standby for a rescue mission. Drudge might not have said it, but I don't give a damn about Drudge. I do give a damn about NASA's own statements.
The fact is, I've worked there and know how NASA operates. I know several of the contractors who build components for the shuttle. I've seen round their workshops, I've talked with their engineers. This doesn't sound like a lack of knowledge to me.
I don't need to defend myself in the face of those who really do know less than me, or even less than those who merely read the newspapers and bother to remember what was said by the people involved.
I don't need to defend how much I know. Repeatedly, as none of this is unique to this posting, I've said all of this in prior Shuttle and/or NASA debates when people have asked for my sources. Why should I keep telling people stuff that they could have looked up for themselves? All my postings are searchable on Google, same as everyone else's. If you wanted to know the extent of my knowledge, you wouldn't need to troll for it.
Can I prove I worked at NASA? Sure. You'll find my old NASA e-mail address on a number of Open Source projects I helped out with at the time. You don't know what those are? Seek and ye shall find. It's not hard to figure out.
Let's see. So, I have inside knowledge of the engineers, inside knowledge of the construction of the Shuttles, and inside knowledge of the political machinations of NASA. And I am the one with the faulty assumptions, working from knowledge I don't have?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It first flew in the early 80's, the designs are from the late 60's early 70's.
The problem with a new design is that new problems come with it. New unknowns. The shuttle is a very well known, and for space travel, reliable platform. New doesn't necessarily mean safe. Improvements could be made, but as with software, the newest software isn't the most reliable.
The real issue is that they are taking large amounts of fuel, and converting it into large amounts of kinetic energy in a very short time, then after floating around for a bit, try to dissipate that energy in a very short time. It's about like a car designed to hit a wall at 200 miles per hour without injuring the passengers. It's probably feasable, but probably not so safe.
Space flight will become safe when we can either use more time to convert the fuel to kinetic energy, and also put the breaks on a bit slower or have much greater control of the energy sources and dissipation we use. I think a space elevator is the best bet currently, but that has a lot of unknowns at this point, and is minimally a few decades away from reality.
But don't let silly things like, oh, facts get in the way of all your flag-waving.
Oh, but don't let silly things like, oh, understanding the facts you presented from getting in the way of all your sophomoric insights.
The best thing that NASA could have done at the time to replace their shuttle fleet would have been to fund or buy Buran from the Russians when they ran out of money. the Russians built an amazing robot spaceplane in the 80's, something that NASA still has not achieved.
There was no neeed for a "robot spaceplane", and the the Buran was never intended to be used as a "robot spaceplane". Look, the shuttle could be remotely piloted, like any other aircraft. It's not because there's no point in remotely piloting a manned aircraft. The idea of remotely piloted manned aircraft was never popular in the US, even though the initial Soviet launch vehicles, specifically the Vostok. You can read all about it in Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff.
A simple example:
If the shuttle's re-entry angle is wrong, EVEN WITH NO DAMAGE, airframe stress becomes critical, it breaks up and everybody dies.
If a Russian space capsule's re-entry angle is wrong, they experience slightly higher G-forces and the pickup helicopter takes a couple of minutes longer to reach them after parachuting to earth.
Let me point out the obvious. A capsule isn't an airplane; The shape of the object helps to determine what stresses it can take. The Russian capsules are compact gumdrops. The shuttle is long and wide. Of course it has a different stress pattern. I'm not even an aerospace engineer, and I know that.
NASA's shuttle is a bastard design created from political compromise: the military wanted it, the scientists wanted it, the politicians wanted it. As a result it works for almost nobody
No argument here.
and is a 30-year old deathtrap. I'm suprised the loss rate has been so low - I have no idea what drugs NASA is ingesting, I'll be very suprised if this one isn't lost as well.
Your sleep at the local Holiday Inn not withstanding, you don't know what you're talking about. You have some individual facts, but you don't have any understanding of them. Come back when you're actually a rocket scientist, and not simply just playing one.
The shuttle should be killed and replaced ASAP, preferably taking some serious clues from bulletproof no-compromise brute simplicity Russian space engineering -
I'm dissing the Russian space program, they managed to keep Mir flying well beyond its intended lifespan, but they have no funding, not equipment, nothing. They're plenty smart, but don't have the ability to actually implement anything they design.
which is currently the best in the history of the world (until the Chinese or commercial sector catches up and passes them).
Yeah. That's why "Russian" is synonymous with well built dependable products, and not rusting, broken, semi-dependable, and kind of sad given their former greatness.
The world has seen that fabulous Russian engineering during the Cold War. Like the Chinese, they copied. The TU-144? The Concorde. The Buran? The space shuttle. The A-Bomb? Given to them by the Rosenbergs. Then there's the whole fiasco with the soviet engineers touring the American factory with special soles on their shoes to pick up metal filings for future analysis.
Coming back to the space program, my favorite quote from the movie version of The Right Stuff comes from an American general learning about Sputnik. He asks the scientist, "Are you telling me their Germans are smarter than our Germans?" Who got space first? The Germans.
I grew up during the 80s, and was told by the
Perhaps this is naive, but I really can't help but think that it's about time to replace the shuttle. (I'll list my reasons below)
1. Each shuttle was designed to have an operational life of 10 years, all have surpassed this age.
2. The shuttle has not had an admirable safety record - It was expected that 1 in each 100 flights would be unsuccessful and end in total failure (like Columbia) however 2 in 113 have ended in failure. I'm not sure what statistical distribution this was modelled on, but surely the number of failures are significantly larger than initially postulated.
3. The shuttle has intrinsic design flaws due to the politics of the cold war - it was hoped that the shuttle could be used for launching reconnaissance satellites and consequently the shuttle had to be fitted with a much larger cargo bay and develop vastly more thrust to deliver the large (approx. 18 tonnes) payloads to polar orbits. It was also hoped by the airforce (who demanded these changes) that after a single orbit the shuttle could land (should the mission be aborted), (against the wishes of NASA who preferred a "splash down") and so the shuttle was fitted with delta shaped wings that are prone to being stuck by debris due to their large size. As a result of all of this additional weight the shuttle had to be fitted with high thrust SRB's which are completely uncontrollable (unlike cryogenic propellants used by Apollo et al).
4. The shuttle sits on the side of its fuel tanks making a detachment impractical should an abort be called at lift off.
If safety concerns were paramount, the shuttle really should have been much smaller, with little wings sitting on top of a rocket propelled by cryogenic fuels.
Nothing sucks like a Vax, nothing blows like a PowerMac G4
The external tank has insulation on it, since it's loaded with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. That insulation is prone to fall off during launch, but by that point it's really served its main purpose already by keeping condensation/ice from forming on the tank prior to launch.